


heart to heart

by threefourthstime



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Temporary Character Death, suicide but only kinda, they pronouns for chara and frisk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 16:19:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5055466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threefourthstime/pseuds/threefourthstime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You aren’t absolutely evil. If you were trying to be, then you messed up. And so late into the show, too.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	heart to heart

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers for, uh, pretty much everything, but mostly the merciless route. if you haven't played the game go play the game.

It used to hurt. You were so fragile back then; you used to halfway bleed out in each fight, your soul aching from the exertion. Or--maybe it just hurt every time you drove in the blunt blade of the fake knife, every time you stepped through the lingering dust. You left pale footprints all across the ruins as you tried to lose the weakness.

(You see a flicker of some memory, your father carefully tracking flour footprints down the hall to prove Santa had visited. He never noticed you watching from the hall, you barely holding in a giggle, your brother distraught at the proof of the lie.)

_But that’s not right. Even if you’d had a brother..._

And you did--it got easier with every strike, until you no longer needed the spiders’ treats, so after only a moment of hesitation you wiped out their webs with the heel of your scuffed-up shoe. Your mom--no, not your mom, the one with the horns, Toriel--looked at you with clear worry in her eyes as you spread the tracks into her home, too. But she must have mistaken it for dirt, or maybe she just chose to pretend so; all she did was look at the scratches running parallel up your arms, and ask if you were okay, maybe you’d feel better after a slice of that butterscotch-cinnamon pie she’d baked as a surprise for you--come to think of it, she supposed she’d ruined the surprise a bit. She wasn’t sure why she’d even asked; she had the feeling you’d like the flavor, for one reason or another.

You smiled and asked her how to get out.

(Where are the knives.)

Facing her down in the tunnel, you held your hands behind your back, until at last Toriel’s flames died down and she looked at you with an expression you can read too easily, for having just met her: regret, worry, a kind of intangible grief. For a moment you hesitated, and you almost talked yourself out of it.

_You don’t--I don’t have to...she’ll listen, I know she will..._

(You’re sick of this. You’re sick of everyone getting their happy ending, of everything working out so perfectly no matter how much they don’t deserve it--)

You’d always done everything right-handed. But, hidden behind your back, the knife slipped from your right hand into your left.

After that, everything felt so much easier.

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes there’s still a spark from within you; on those occasions, it feels like the toy knife’s turned to steel and you’ve turned it on yourself. Things like watching a tattered scarf disappear into a pile of whiteness, until it’s hard to tell which parts are the snow and which parts are the dust. Things like a (strangely familiar) music box playing in the false rain. Things like taking a spear to the chest and wondering for a bizarre, delusional moment how this might have gone differently. You blame that one on dying; the timelines always blur a bit then, after all. It was just luck which absurd possibility you thought of. But you reawaken and watch the kid (free EXP, what are they trying to prove?) run away again and it takes half the battle with Undyne to stand steadily again.

But these are fleeting, and they only grow more distant with every dust-coated step you take. You’ve been smiling ever since you stepped out of the Ruins. Eventually almost nothing can hurt you, which means it’s finally working. You can hear it now, off in the distance, in the cavernous silence that once held so many monsters’ voices. The countdown has already started.

By the time you reach the Core, it’s almost deafening; it’s your metronome as your footsteps clack against the grating, one-two, one-two. You’d still like to find the knives, but the butt of an empty gun does the job just as well; you take care to empty out this pathetic world entirely, only smiling as the last of the monsters falls to pieces.

(How many of those faces have you seen before? How many were in the crowds outside New Home when you lived there? Like this, after so long and after so many changes, a new body, a new existence--could any of them have recognized you?

You hope they could.)

Mettaton’s transformation only twists the smile wider on your face. You’d heard he was weak, but to realize he can’t even fight back? You can’t do much to that body of his, but you’re all too happy to splinter the soul hidden away inside. He only stares at you as you lift the gun in your left hand, stepping forward, bringing it down--

Your fingers go numb. The weapon slips from your hand.

What follows is a brittle _clang_ as your knuckles crack hard against the metal. Your now-empty fist lingers there for a moment, usefully, and the first drops of blood crawl down your wrist before plopping pathetically onto the floor. A spike of pain jars you for the first time in centuries, in tandem with a flood of fire inside your heart, but you swallow, lower your arm, and step back.

Mettaton is shaking, barely keeping himself together. “G-guess she should have worked more on the defenses,” he stutters.

You plaster the grin back on. “See?” you grit out, though your eyes flicker to the gun lying abandoned on the floor. “It doesn’t matter. I still won! I still won.”

(If other people would just let you alone, maybe everything would work out this time. Maybe everyone would finally die, this time around-- **about time** _\--_ )

Absently, you try to pop your fingers back into place. You don’t think it’s working. At the sound, Mettaton forces his eyes to focus on you. “You may have defeated me, but…” He gathers his breath, which is stupid, just like all these monsters and all of this is stupid, because doesn’t he know that breathing doesn’t matter for him? Doesn’t anyone realize **none of this matters?**

“--I know. I can tell from that strike, darling.”

But the countdown is gone, you realize. The timer has dropped away, and all you’re left with is--

He manages a sliver of a smile. “ _You were holding back.”_

 

* * *

 

 

You stay in denial all the way up to the castle, which is why you SAVE right outside that damn hallway. You’ve heard that, in the right sort of timeline, Flowey’s supposed to pop up somewhere around here--but probably that was a lie. You believe this despite the empty echoes of your shoes against the cobblestones, unobscured by the countdown, the dust fading until you hardly leave any prints at all. You remember the look on (your mom’s) your mom’s (no, **Toriel’s** ) face as she fell; you remember Papyrus’ absolute refusal to see the truth; you remember…

(You catch a reflection in the mirror, on your way up, and you’re not sure if it’s yours or theirs. You have to manually bend your fingers around the hilt of the knife, if you want to hold it left-handed; you get this body’s blood all over it, and at the sight you leave the locket in its box.)

You remember a lot of things, really. Some of them overlap, mixing their colors together. You try to remind yourself that none of them matter anymore.

But then you reach the corridor and Sans is just...he’s staring at you. There’s nothing but hatred in his eyes, but that’s the problem--he’s mad, obviously, but not mad enough.

Something slips sideways in your chest and suddenly your smile feels like plastic. You let it drop, fraction by fraction, and for a moment you just stare at the skeleton, expressionless.

“So you finally made it,” he starts, and you’ve been here before.

You hear something break as you scream and rip yourself loose from the timeline, feel the tangled strings of could-haves and would-haves whipping at your face as the emptiness blossoms around you; you’ll try again, you’ll reset back to the start, whatever, you don’t care you don’t care **you don’t care--**

You open your eyes and you’re leaning against a cobblestone wall, in this place you (used to) would have called home, and the lights inside are waiting for you.

For a moment you’re too stunned to do anything. Then you turn and try to sink your knife into the caulk between the stones, but you haven’t picked up the knife yet and the gun’s still waiting for you at Mettaton’s motionless feet, so your inventory scrambles for purchase and you end up slamming a frying pan into the wall. You stare at the cooking utensil in disbelief, then attack the wall again, and again for good measure, until you’re holding nothing but a useless heap of metal. It’s coated in a slurry of someone’s dust and your own blood.

Oh, you think, looking down at your hand. It’s turned midnight-purple, the color of this fake sky with its fake stars. Gently, your right hand pries its partner’s crooked fingers away from the handle. The frying pan, too, you let drop to the floor.

_Sorry_ , you hear something in you whisper. _I’m really sorry._

It’s them, or maybe it’s you. Nevertheless, you don’t particularly feel like listening. “Shut up,” you mutter, letting yourself slide down the wall to join the frying pan. Something wet plops against your bruised knees and you realize that they’re crying, or maybe that’s also you.

_You’re gonna destroy the world_ , the voice says.

“What, what did you expect?” You scowl. “What do you care? What do you get out of caring about people, huh? I killed them all anyway. They’re all weak. None of them ever mattered.”

The voice hesitates; you feel it in your soul before it reaches your mind. _I don’t believe you._ It’s infuriating, the sudden rush of warmth you get, like someone’s placed their hand over your heart. _You weren’t like this before._

“What?”

_‘The demon that comes when you call its name.’_ That’s right, you think, rubbing at your eyes with your sleeve. It’s a wonder you don’t get dust in your eyes. The juxtaposition is almost funny, somehow. _That’s what...gets said, at that ending. But...I don’t think you’re the one saying it. That’s not really you...right?_

You think of all the world-destroying you could be doing right now. You could be finishing the job--instead you must look like a child, crying their eyes out at the end of the hall. (You’re tired of this. You think you were tired long before you ever woke up.)

What you end up saying is, “What? You’re dumb.”

But you can feel the voice--no--you can feel Frisk smiling at you, albeit sadly. _You’re...not really like that. Even if you really made it look that way._ They hesitate. _For a long time I thought you were just...empty. But I can tell, you know._

(They’re cupping your soul--their soul--in their hands. It’s gone dim, all muddied, coated with your fingerprints and theirs, your voices blending together. There’s the faintest glow from its center, though, something you’ve never been able to touch.)

_Remember when you used to play around the castle?_

“Stop it,” you say. “I don’t care! Shut up.”

_I’m sorry,_ they say. _Please don’t be mad. Just...if we keep going...you die too, at the end. All that’s left is..._ They shake their head. _You know that, don’t you?_

There’s that feeling again, like something’s slipped out from inside your heart. You’re shouting, then: “I **know**! Why do you think I’m still bothering with this stupid place, huh? Nobody deserves to be here! I know! **That’s the whole point**!”

You take a deep breath, and suddenly the silence falls heavy on your shoulders.

Someone’s watching. You can think of very few people who might be watching now, because most the options are dead. You look over your shoulder and Sans is staring at you, again, from just within the doorway. The lights are still on in his eyes, though with a tenuous connection at best. What, you think almost hysterically, nowis he willing to fight you? Somehow you can still get back on the path? Is someone in this world about to do something useful for once?

But what he says is, “hey, kid.”

You glance down at your very sad frying pan. If you hit him upside the head with it he’d probably keel over. Good luck, though. You know there’s some things that can’t be changed. Instead you just stare at him, keeping your expression steadily. (Usually Asriel’s the one to pretend he wasn’t crying. You think you liked it better that way.)

“anybody home in there?” he asks. After a pause, he seems to look out to the horizon, though you never feel his gaze leave you. “‘cause home out here’s looking pretty dead.”

_Have you ever tried just...listening to people? Just giving them a chance, first?_

(Don’t bother with him. He’s just in your way. Don’t trust anyone.)

“But this is New Home, though,” you say, which is just stupid. You’d reset solely to unsay it, but something’s firmly barricaded that door behind you.

Sans does something that’s probably a chuckle. “well, you got me there,” he says. “thought to you it wouldn’t make a difference.” He strolls a few steps closer, clearing half the distance, and leans against the wall in a way you’d normally call casual. “same thing’s true on the other side, isn’t it? you’ve been busy,” he observes, with a nod to the horizon. Then his gaze intensifies, like needles against your skin. “or maybe it wasn’t you after all?”

There’s almost a spark, somewhere in (your?) _their?_ this soul; it’s accompanied by a flash of pain from your hand, dyed red. Almost immediately you push it aside. You can’t get the smile running again, but you can keep your face blank, returning Sans’ gaze.

“huh,” he says. You think maybe he’s disappointed. “thought maybe we were getting somewhere, for a second. guess that was too much to hope for.” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, taking a step back toward the hallway. “you know where i’ll be.”

He makes it almost to the door before you get that same fragile feeling again. “Wait.”

The silence stretches thick between you. If each timeline is a thread, then between you are a hundred ropes, from your fingers to his chest. You’d have slashed straight across his ribs, you think distantly. Jagged and sideways like you’d torn open the sky.

Sans looks at you for a long time. Whatever you wanted to say, the words have dried out in your throat. “well?” he says. “do you think you’ve got anything that can make this better?”

The hatred is plain in his words. Part of you thinks that maybe, if you pushed him enough, you could go off-script. Get this whole world over with.

(You’d be nothing but glad to destroy this place, you tell yourself.)

“No,” you say.

It’s the right answer, you think, but still not enough. “then what?” he says. “what’s making you stop now, after everything you’ve done? why now?”

(He won’t accept an answer from you.)

_Maybe he would, if you’d just hear him out._

(You think about how the robot said it, the moment the countdown clock smashed on the floor.

“You aren’t absolutely evil. If you were trying to be, then you messed up.

And so late into the show, too.”)

Your right hand’s resting over your heart, the left useless in your lap. You swallow. Sure, he won’t accept anything from _you,_ but... “They say that they liked the puzzles,” you tell him, the words coming out in a rush. When he doesn’t say anything you continue: “A-and that crosswords are harder but they like the stupid word search better. And that they tried to stop at your hot-dog stand even when you weren’t there, and that they thought of you in this really expensive restaurant, once, for some reason...and that they--they wanted to go on that date, if they could’ve. That I--that they were trying to just...talk to everyone, the whole time, and I--they--and they would’ve talked to him and for some reason they had this line already picked out in their head, the whole time…”

You see him trying to form the words a second before he manages it. “yeah?” says Sans. “what was it?”

It was the only time you’d heard them laugh, like in that moment the bad joke could make everything right, like it was that old bandage they’d worn for so long around their wrist. At the time you’d just fixed them with that smile, and their voice had died down soon enough. Remembering it now, that laugh sounds like a music box, fragile but always ready to wind up again. You wonder what would have happened, if you’d let it last longer.

It comes out in a mumble the first time, but on the second you get it right. “Are...are you boiling my pasta?” you half-whisper. “Because I...oh my god.” You rub at one eye. “Because I go soft whenever I’m around you...”

You almost choke, turning away from him. Your chest heaves in hiccups, tears laid over laughter, everything blurring together. God, you think, this is a new low. You thought you’d gotten stronger than this. You think about Asriel, that one day. How he’d tried to laugh with you at the image of your dad wrapped up in the Santa suit. How he’d wiped at his tears on the way to the laughter. Pale footprints traced all across the floor.

Sans’ hand comes to rest against your shoulder. It squeezes at first, but then the pressure lets up. He waits until you’ve managed to force the tears back down; you still don’t want to look at him, but you can hear the words just fine. “there’s only two ways out, from here. and, uh. right now, you don’t seem the type to do the first one.”

You try the reset again, but grounded as you are, not even dead in the slightest, you can’t get your fingers around the connections. “I can’t right now,” you tell him. A pause. You already know the answer to this one. Act, you think, not spare. “Unless…”

It must be clear from your words, because you hear him shift behind you. You imagine the warring on his face; you wonder if he’ll enjoy it, or if this is one last bit of pain you can force on someone. Eventually, at least, his grip on your shoulder tightens again. “you sure about this, kid?”

(Not really.)

“Yeah,” you say. You stand up and turn to face him, hands clasped in front of you, left hand cradled in your right. You don’t close your eyes, not even for a second. He would have done it anyway, you think. Ten, maybe a hundred times.

Frisk pulls you close to them as everything goes blue.

 

* * *

 

 

You wake up among the flowers, the last hints of sunlight dancing across your face. Your fingertips press into the earth and you think about what you’d find there, if you dug deep enough. You could pull up all the flowers by their roots and dig until you couldn’t feel your hands again, and it still wouldn’t fix anything.

Frisk sits up. You’re along for the ride, watching them look blearily at where they’ve fallen. They’ve got their hands folded together in their lap, a stick leaning against their knee, a bandage wrapped around one tired wrist, a tiny frown on their lips. Already, even down in the ruins, you can hear the life going on around you. A faint sort of music comes in on the stale air, carried on by souls miraculously pieced together from dust. Everything’s back where it started.

You know how it goes from here.

\--Except that, before they stand up, they use their fist to make a gentle circle over their heart. _Sorry._

(What? you think at them, as fiercely as you can manage. You just got them killed.)

They just shrug, experimentally getting to their feet.

(Not just them, either.)

They focus their thoughts on you, and you can almost feel their hand reaching out to you, in whatever part of this battered soul you share.

(...

…

It’s you who should be sorry.)

In response, they offer you half of a sad smile. When you don’t resist, they let their hand come to rest in yours, warm and familiar.

_Come on_ , they think, their voice like a bell. _Let’s go home._

 

**Author's Note:**

> I like the idea of...the boundary between Frisk and Chara blurring, sometimes. How it turns out all depends on the player. If you give into your curiosity or if you learn how to let go. If you let yourself embody the demon, too, or if you let these kids be their own people.
> 
> In other news, apparently if you don't hit Mettaton NEO hard enough, [you get locked out of the merciless route.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axZ1r_duW0w) The game's last chance for you to back down, and it's very possible to do by accident, just by a slip of a hand, a brief moment of hesitation. So, uh. Shoutout to this guy, I guess.


End file.
